Alfonso VIII of Castile issues coins like the dinars of the Almoravids. They came to be known as maravedís.

The Almohads capture the kingdom of Murcia; and besiege Huete, near Toledo.

1173

The Almohads ravage the vicinity of Talavera.

1174

The Almohads seize Alcantara, but they are unable to capture Ciudad Rodrigo.

Giraldo Sempavor is beheaded by the Almohads after having defected to them and being suspected of conspiring with Afonso Henriques.

1176

Aragon. Is written the municipal charter (fuero) of Teruel. “The Jews are the slaves of the crown and belong exclusively to the royal treasury.” This charter served as model for other cities in Aragon and Castile.

Alfonso VIII of Castile, with the help of Alfonso II of Aragon force Cuenca to surrender.

1179 March 20

Treaty of Cazorla is signed between Alfonso VIII of Castile and Alfonso II of Aragon pledging mutual aid against any other ruler and planning to partition the terra Hyspaniae. The Muslim lands of Valencia, Jativa, Biar, Denia, and Calpe are reserved for Alfonso II and his heirs.

Alfonso II of Aragon eliminates the last symbolic vestige of Aragonese dependence upon France, surviving from the Carolingian era, by ordering that royal documents should no longer record the regnal years of the French kings.

Count Raymond V of Toulouse's partisans had assassinated Alfonso II's younger brother, Ramon Berenguer; then had sought aid from Genoa, which aspired to control the Provençal coast; Alfonso had countered this with an alliance with Pisa, Genoa's rival. Now a peace treaty is signed giving Alfonso II a reasonably secure position in Provence.

Alfonso IX holds a meeting of his curia at Leon. For the first time in western Christendom representatives of the towns are assembled together with bishops and magnates. These are the first cortes.

1189 July 6

Portugal. A fleet of crusaders arrives at Lisbon and accepts Sancho I's proposal for a joint attack on Silves in the Algarve, the southernmost sector of the Portuguese territory.

1189 Sept. 1

Portugal. Surrender of Silves to the Portuguese and the crusaders. These resume their pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

1191

The caliph returns and succeeds in capturing Silves, Alcacer do Sal, Palmela, and Almada, all but Evora.

The kings of Aragon, Leon, and Portugal promise to join together against Alfonso VIII of Castile. The ensuing warfare was a cause of scandal, especially to Pope Celestine III who sent his legates to restore concord.

1192

Along the coast of the Bay of Biscay, Santander, Laredo, Castro Urdiales, and other towns were beginning to develop trade relations with the French towns of Bayonne and Bordeaux. Alfonso VIII assigned this year to the bishop of Burgos a tenth of the tolls on cloth, arms, and other merchandise imported to Santander or Castro Urdiales or any other port in the diocese.

Alfonso II of Aragon dies on 25 April. He bequeaths Aragon to his oldest son Pedro, and leaves Provence and Languedoc to his second son Alfonso II. Pedro II (1196-1213) new king of Aragon.

Aragon. A law is published banishing heretics from the domains of Pedro II under threat of confiscation of property and death at the stake.

1197

Aragon. Pedro II promulgates a decree strictly commanding all heretics to leave “our kingdom … or be burned by fire”. This was the first enactment of the death penalty by fire for heretics in western Europe, and given its proximity to Languedoc, the center of Albigensianism.

Under the suggestion of Queen Leonor of Castile, her daughter Berenguela marries Alfonso IX of Leon; ceremony takes place at Valladolid.

1198

Pope Innocent III excommunicates Alfonso IX of Leon and Berenguela for being married under prohibited degrees, but they already had four children, including the future Fernando III. They dissolve their marriage and eventually are freed from censure.

Pedro II in the curia of Cervera acknowledges the practice in Catalonia of the ius maletractandi, the right to coerce the peasants, to imprison them and confiscate their goods or even to kill them, though restricting the use to the estates of the secular lords. The burdens imposed upon the Catalan peasantry eventually provoked them to the point of rebellion in the later Middle Ages and resulted in substantial change in their condition.

1203

The Almohads gain control of the Balearic Islands.

1204

Pedro II marries Marie of Montpellier, a marriage which made him the lord of Montpellier. He was however a faithless and dissolute husband and spent little time with his wife; it was almost by chance that the future Jaime I was born to the royal pair in 1208. Pedro II also journeys this year to Rome where he renews the feudal bond between Aragon and the Holy See, as a papal vassal pledging payment of an annual tribute.

1207

Castile. Truce between Alfonso VIII and Navarre leaves Castile in possession of the recently conquered provinces of Guipuzcoa and Alava.

Leon and Castile renew their treaty of peace. All Christian princes are in concord at last.

1210

Castile. Alfonso VIII settles San Vicente de la Barquera, giving the inhabitants the fuero of San Sebastian, with the additional provision that the rules applying to the arrival of ships at Santander would also apply to San Vicente. In the 13th C. these towns organized an association to defend their interests, both against the bishop of Burgos and against their French neighbors.

Castile. Caliph al-Nasir (1299-1213), known as Miramamolin, besieges the castle of Salvatierra, the chief seat of the knights of Calatrava. The knights are authorized by Alfonso VIII to surrender the castle after two months of defending it. Miramamolin returns to Cordoba, since the summer was at an end, preferring to resume the campaign in the spring. A través de los cistercienses se extiende enseguida la noticia por Europa.

Castile. A cosmopolitan Christian army sets out at Toledo. Divided in three sections. Diego Lopez de Haro, lord of Vizcaya, led the vanguard composed of troops from beyond the Pyrenees; then followed Pedro II of Aragon and the count of Ampurias; finally the rearguard under the command of Alfonso VIII, accompanied by Archbishop Rodrigo, bishops, and the masters of the military Orders.

1212 June 24

Castile. Proceeding southward, the French and other ultramontane crusaders seize the castle of Malagon and slaughter the garrison.

1212 July 16

The Christian army reaches Calatrava, whose alcaide surrenders on this date after a brief siege. Alfonso VIII allows the defenders to leave and restores the fortress to the Order of Calatrava, but at this point the ultramontanes, complaining of the heat and lack of booty, abandon the crusade. Only the archbishop of Narbonne and Theobald of Blazon remain. As they resume their march, they are joined by Sancho VII of Navarre.

1212 July 13

July 13-16. Castile. They reach Las Navas on 13 July. Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa: Diego Lopez de Haro commanded the center of the Christian army, with Sancho VII on his right and Pedro II on his left, while Alfonso VIII and the military Orders held the rear. The kings of Aragon and Navarre carried out a pincers movement, and Alfonso VIII rushed forward, breaking the enemy lines. Sancho VII drove forward through a circle of Negro slaves chained to one another to guard Miramamolin's tent. The caliph took flight and did not rest until he had reached Jaen. The Christian triumph was complete.

1212

The aljama of Huesca complained to Pedro II of Aragon that local Jews were being withdrawn from their jurisdiction. The king restored the “free” Jews to the jurisdiction of the aljama, making them liable to all communal obligations.

Pedro II dies at the battle of Muret (cruzada albigiense contra los cátaros), near Toulouse. The prestige of the victor, Simon de Montfort, is enhanced. He continued to conquer the county of Toulouse with renewed zeal. Muret also hastened the end of an independent Languedoc, which, in not too many years, would pass into the hands of the Capetian dynasty. Catalan dreams of political domination north of the Pyrenees are destroyed once and for all. Jaime I is now king of Aragon (1213-1276), at the age of 5, and a virtual prisoner of Simon de Montfort, whose daughter he was intended to marry.

1213

1213-1214. St. Francis of Assisi made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, and a few years later the first province of his Order was established in Spain.

1214 Oct. 5

Alfonso VIII of Castile dies. The throne passes to the youngest child, Enrique I (1214-1217), a boy of only eleven years under the guardianship of his older sister Berenguela.

“Slavery, protection, and monopoly find defenders, not only in those who profit by them, but in those who suffer by them.”

Frédéric Bastiat

On the true nature of the Castro Revolution in Cuba: "The revolution was a cover for committing atrocities without the slightest vestige of guilt ... we were young and irresponsible. We were pirates. We formed our own caste ... we belonged to and believed in nothing -no religion, no flag, no morality or principle. It's fortunate we didn't win, because if we had, we would have drowned the continent in barbarism."